Ageism is alive and well in our culture. If you are a certain age, you pretty much know this already.
But to actually deal with it, you need to start thinking differently about aging itself, according to gerontologist Jeanette Leardi. In her new book, “Aging Sideways: Changing Our Perspectives on Getting Older,” Leardi crushes stereotypes about age and offers new approaches for welcoming getting older — and dealing with how others think about you.
We asked Leardi for some advice. Below are excerpts of her talk with Yahoo Finance, edited for brevity and clarity.
Kerry Hannon: What is ageism?
Jeanette Leardi: It is discrimination based on age, period. Anybody’s age. If we are judging people solely based on their chronological age, that’s ageism. There are different types of ageism. Internalized ageism, in which we ourselves are ageist against ourselves and our ability to function at our age, whatever age that is. An older person who is internally ageist could say or think, “I’m too old to do this.” Or, “What will people think of me if I act this way?”
We live in a society that puts people into boxes. We should be declaring our age. We should be proud to be whatever age we are. We’re lucky to get older, so why is this something we should be running away from?
Why does aging confuse us?
It confuses us because we are bombarded with so many messages about how to think about aging. We may feel pretty positive about ourselves. And then we get these constant messages about anti-aging creams and gray hair and wrinkles, and we hear jokes. One of my greatest pet peeves is listening to late night talk show monologues. The hosts of these shows make fun of old people in a way that they wouldn’t think about telling sexist jokes or racist jokes or homophobic jokes.
“Smart employers realize that you need both younger and older people in the workplace at the same time.” (Getty Creative) ·Thomas Barwick via Getty Images
What is old?
The most common thing is chronological age. Then there’s functional age — what can you do at your age? How old do you feel? The problem is when someone is judging us by chronological age and the reality of our functional age doesn’t match it.
You write about successful aging versus empowered aging. Can you just elaborate?
Successful aging is all about how to age well.
We need to eat right, get enough sleep, exercise, stay engaged, and have great social relationships. All of that stuff is important, but it implies that the individual is solely responsible. Empowered aging is a 50-50 proposition. We are 50% responsible for how well we age. But society is 50% responsible too. What kind of programs are out there to give us all equal opportunities? You know, the whole DEI [diversity, equity, and inclusion] concept in the workplace, that’s where society comes in. That’s the role society should be playing. Do we have affordable housing? Do we have access to a healthcare system that’s not prejudiced against older adults where we’re denied treatments or excluded from a clinical trial because people think we’re too old to be represented?
Why should we always ask what we want to be when we grow up?
This matters at every stage of life. We need to feel we have a sense of purpose, that we have a sense of identity. As kids, we’re always asked, what do you want to be when you grow up? Somehow that question isn’t asked of us as we get older, as if we have stopped maturing, as if we have stopped changing, stopped growing. You may have left the working world of your own accord, or for other reasons, for example, but no one is asking, “What else do you want to do? Where do you want to go?” When nobody is asking us where we want to go, that is conveying a message that there’s nowhere for us to go — that we are done and we’ve stopped our journey. We’ve parked a car on the side of the road, and that’s it.
There are plenty of ways in which we should move ahead; an empowered aging society has to give us those opportunities to move ahead.
You’re not a big fan of the term “golden years.” Why not?
We’re talking about a precious metal. Gold is malleable. Why would we see our older years as something that could be manipulated from the outside? It should be the steel years. Steel is not a pure metal. It’s an alloy. It’s several metals together. It becomes stronger the more you dip it into intense heat and then dip it into intense cold, and you fold it over and over itself. It gets beaten down, and it gets stronger. As older adults, we are living our steel years. We have been tempered over our lifetimes to be strong and useful. That’s valuable.
What we want to be when we grow up matters at every stage of life. (Getty Creative) ·RgStudio via Getty Images
Can you talk a bit about ageism in the workplace?
It can play out in the workplace in terms of hiring, training, and promotions for older employees, but younger employees may have difficulty with those things too because the person hiring thinks they don’t have enough experience or been on the job long enough, for instance. Smart employers realize that you need both younger and older people in the workplace at the same time. Lots of research has been done that shows that intergenerational work teams are the most productive. Younger brains and older brains are great together.
Younger brains are good at speed of processing — how fast they can react to certain situations. They’re good at working memory — the ability to learn new things and retain the rules and the instructions at the moment that they’re learning this new task. They’re good at multitasking — shifting quickly between two conscious tasks. They’re also good at something called conceptual creativity — thinking out of the box, coming up with these wild ideas.
Older brains are able to process information from multiple perspectives. Our brains literally change — physiologically change — as we get older to enable us to see not just the black and white of a situation but the gray areas — the what ifs. Older brains are much better at quality control than younger brains are. You need the older brain in the workplace to point out the subtleties, to get the gist of an idea much quicker. Younger brains can sometimes be in the weeds.
And older brains empathize and see a problem from others’ perspectives much better. Younger people can do that, but our brains get better at it with age and experience.
Older adults have more power than they think they have. But to realize that, you have to start by questioning your own perceptions about age. I firmly believe in something called the power of one. If you see something that’s ageist, or you are experiencing something that’s ageist, advocate for yourself, step out of the victim role, and say something. Shift those perspectives. You can start by declaring your age. I’m 72, and I’m proud of it.
